What Regulatory Mode tells us about Body Movement, Assortments and Missed Opportunities.

Abstract

Modern retail-environments demand ever less physically and ever more cognitively from consumers. Customers barely have to move to make a purchase but need to go through countless options, many of which might not even be available by the time they make a decision. Research considering consumers’ reactions to these developments is contradictory and largely ignorant of consumer differences. Across three research projects, each of which comprises of three studies, we illustrate how consumers’ locomotion and assessment orientations determine reactions to body movement, large assortments and missed opportunities. We explore underlying mechanisms, show that effects hold when priming or measuring orientations and when accounting for alternative accounts.